wtf - evok said that he sees less and less relevance of V8 engines in passenger cars. he said nothing about trucks. one would assume that V8's will remain in trucks for quite some time to come, which harkens back to the 'Death' title which clearly should not have in the title of the article.
he framed the discussion - "V8's in passenger cars." others decided to bring in trucks. (if i made comments about VW's TDI being less relevant in the Golf does it make sense to start talking about the Duramax diesel in Chevy's HD lineup?) I don't think so. Again, the only reason that trucks enter the equation is because the title infers that the V8 is dead comletely.
actually, I don't think you have grasped the thrust. if a DI 3.6l can deliver 300hp in the DTS, then why do we need a V8 option? the car will go 0-60 in 6+ seconds with the V6, is dropping the 0-60 to 6 flat going to make that big of a difference? Not to most consumers. To most of the gear heads on this board it is not acceptable but to the people that are actually out there buying new cars, it is not an issue.
Today's V6's are delivering the performance of yesterday's V8's. At some point, to the average consumer, the law of diminishing returns starts to kick in where the benefit of moving to a V8 just isn't there. And I think we are reaching that point now. Think about it 300hp V6 engines! Who the hell needs that much hp? The answer is probably no one, but I'll leave it at a few.
And just to really get you guys in a tizzy, can you imagine if the domestics didn't have the truck market to absorb the development dollars of their V8's. There would be no LS6/LS7, and if by chance there were (due to C5.R racing etc) they would cost a heck of a lot more than they do now due to the extremely low volumes in CARS.